A Boy with No Name, by Travis

I've been listening to Travis's latest album, A Boy with No Name, the last few weeks. Before I say anything else, I must complain about the practice of having a bonus track. In this age of digital music, it is a major pain to have a nine-, ten-minute long unit containing the last official song, several minutes of nothing, and then the bonus track. My CD player in the car isn't smart enough to jump to the bonus track, so either I have to keep one finger on the fast-forward button while driving, or I'm stuck listening to several minutes of blank. To make matters worse, a typical commercial program such as iTunes cannot easily separate the two tracks, so I end up having to use cdparanoia on Linux to rip select segments. But tracks obtained this way contain no album information. Yes, I know I'm nitpicking, however, I just don't see the point of bonus tracks. In the case of some albums, the bonus tracks are just a few simple lines that are best ignored. Travis's bonus tracks though have always been bona fide songs, often of higher quality than some of the listed tracks. What is the point of continuing this archaic practice?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I find this album to be much better than their previous album, 12 Memories. My favourite songs are 3 Times and You Lose, Closer, My Eyes, and the bonus track. 3 Times and You Lose has the haunting style reminiscent of As You Are from their second album, The Man Who. Closer and My Eyes are more energetic and at the same time full of emotions. The bonus track is a classical Travis affair, a lovely melody supported by quick beats. A number of other songs in the album are highly likeable also. It's one of their best work to date.